Forms: α. 2–6 frut, 3–6 fruyt(e, 4–5 froyte, (4 frot(t, fryt(e), 4–6 frute, -tt(e, north. and Sc. froit(e, (4 freut, frou(i)t, fruȝt, 5 fret, fruth), 4–7 fruite, (4 fruyȝte, 6 frught, Sc. frw(i)t), 3– fruit. β. 4–6 fruct(e, 6 fruict. [a. OFr. fruit (later often spelt fruict):—L. frūctus (u-stem), f. *frugv- root of fruī to enjoy.]
The form fruct(e in 14–15th c. English use, and still later in Sc. writers, appears to be merely a variety of spelling (of course after the L.); but it is possible that in the few English 16th c. uses of this form, which seem to be confined to immaterial senses, the writers intended the word to be taken as a direct adaptation of the Latin, with the c pronounced.
1. Vegetable products in general, that are fit to be used as food by men and animals. Now usually in pl. Also fruits of the earth or the ground.
α. c. 1175. Lamb. Hom., 135. Me saweð sed on ane time and gedereð þet frut on oðer time.
c. 1300. Cursor M., 28833 (Cott. Galba). Þe pouer man es like þe felde, Þat mekill fruit es wont to yelde.
c. 1375. Lay Folks Mass Bk. (MS. B.), 392. Þo froytes of þo erthe make plentuus.
1389. in Eng. Gilds (1870), 111. We schal beseke for ye frutte yt is on ye herthe.
1486. Bk. St. Albans, E v. Booth in wodys and feldis corne and oder frute.
1538. Starkey, England, I. iii. 73. Yf hyt were dylygently laburyd, hyt wold bryng forth frute for the nuryschyng of man.
1549. Bk. Com. Prayer, Litany. That it may please thee to give and preserve to our use the kindly fruits of the earth.
1648. Gage, West Ind., xii. 43. The answer of our Queene Elizabeth … to some that presented unto her of the fruits of America.
1665. Ord. Mayor Lond., in De Foe, Plague (1840), 46. That no stinking Fish, or unwholesome Flesh, or musty Corn, or other corrupt Fruits, or what Sort soever be suffered to be sold about the City.
1725. Watts, Logic, I. vi. § 3. If the husk or seeds are eaten, they are called the fruits of the ground.
1791. T. Newte, Tour Eng. & Scot., 196. At Aberdeen, turnips, carrots, and potatoes, pass, among the common people, by the name of fruit.
1859. Jephson, Brittany, ii. 20. The Breton peasant can turn all the fruits of the earth to account.
β. c. 1374. Chaucer, Former Age, 3. They helde hem paied of the fructes þat þey ete.
1500–20. Dunbar, Poems, xiv. 63. Quhilk slayis the corne and fruct that growis grene.
fig. c. 1374. Chaucer, Boeth., I. pr. i. 3 (Camb. MS.). Thise ben tho that … destroyen the corn plentyuos of fruites of resone.
1559. Mirr. Mag., Hen. VI., xxxix. See here the pleasaunt fruytes that many princes reape.
1707. Watts, Hymn, ‘Come, we that love the Lord,’ viii. Celestial Fruits on earthly Ground From Faith and Hope may grow.
1783. R. Watson, Philip III. (1793), I. II. 233. He considered that while the preservation of Rhinberg would be the only fruit which he could reap from a victory, a defeat must be attended with a loss of other towns of still greater importance.
2. The edible product of a plant or tree, consisting of the seed and its envelope, esp. the latter when it is of a juicy pulpy nature, as in the apple, orange, plum, etc. † Tree of fruit = fruit-tree.
As denoting an article of food, the word is popularly extended to include certain vegetable products that resemble ‘fruits’ in their qualities, e.g., the stalks of rhubarb.
a. collect. in sing.
a. 1225. Ancr. R., 150. Figer is ones kunnes treou þet bereð swete frut, þet me clepeð figes.
13[?]. E. E. Allit. P., B. 1044. Þe fayrest fryt þat may in folde growe, As orenge & oþer fryt.
c. 1380. Wyclif, Serm., Sel. Wks. I. 69. Al oþer trees of fruyte.
c. 1400. Lanfranc’s Cirurg., 75. I ne apreve nouȝt almaundis ne noon oþer vaperous fruyt: as notis eiþir walnotis eiþer avellanes.
c. 1483. Caxton, Vocab., 6 b. Of fruyt shall ye here named Peres, apples, plommes.
1577. B. Googe, Heresbach’s Husb., II. (1586), 62. The berries, which is the fruite, are redde.
1626. Bacon, Sylva, § 432. The Lownesse of the Bough, where the Fruit cometh, maketh the Fruit greater, and to ripen better.
1677. Grew, Anat. Fruits, v. § 1 (1682), 186. The Fruit, strictly so called, is, A Fleshy Uterus, which grows more moist and Pulpy, as the Seed ripens.
1706. Pope, Lett. to Wycherley, 10 April, Lett. (1735), 26. We take Branches from a Tree, to add to the Fruit.
1837. Penny Cycl., VII. 27. [Bats] devouring indiscriminately every kind of fruit.
fig. a. 1225. Ancr. R., 276. Mon, þi flesch, hwat frut bereð hit?
1697. Dryden, Virg. Georg., III. 57. Heroes, whose Etherial Root Is Jove himself, and Cæsar is the Fruit.
1771. Junius Lett., lix. 304. [He] sees the fruit of his honest industry ripen beyond his hopes.
b. with a and pl., as denoting a kind of fruit.
α. c. 1250. Gen. & Ex., 216. Ðat he sulde him ðer loken fro A fruit, ðe kenned wel and wo.
a. 1300. Cursor M., 11667 (Gött.). Scho … sau a frout … Men clepes palmes in þat land.
1375. Barbour, Bruce, X. 191. The treis … Chargit vith froytis on syndri viss.
c. 1400. Lanfranc’s Cirurg., 261. Þou schalt purge colre wiþ a decoccioun of fretis.
c. 1460. J. Russell, Bk. Nurture, 666.
| Furst speke with þe pantere or officere of þe spicery | |
| For frutes a-fore mete to ete þem fastynyely. |
1527. R. Thorne, in Hakluyt, Voy. (1589), 252. Our fruites and graines be Apples, Nuts, and Corne.
1650. Fuller, A Pisgah-sight of Palestine, I. iv. 11. Dates, Almonds, Nuts … Figs, Pomegranates and other severall fruits.
1795. Gentl. Mag., 540/1. The glow of ripe fruits and declining leaves mark the autumn.
1842. Tennyson, The Gardener’s Daughter, 190. Fruits and cream served in the weeping elm.
1858. Homans, Cycl. Commerce, 886. This fruit [currants] is of a violet colour, and hangs in long loose bunches.
β. 1475. The Boke of Noblesse, 70. Planted withe treis of verdure of divers fructis, the gardyns so welle aleyed to walke upon.
1585. Jas. I., Ess. Poesie (Arb.), 14. To taste, and smell … Delicious fruictis, whilks in that tyme abound.
1596. Dalrymple, trans. Leslie’s Hist. Scot., I. 6. Excepte spice and Vine, and sum fructes.
c. An individual product of a tree. rare.
1873. C. Robinson, N. S. Wales, 26. The Mandarin has borne 4,200 fruits in the year.
d. Proverbs.
α. a. 1300. Cursor M., 38 (Gött.). Wers tre wer frouit it beris.
c. 1530. R. Hilles, Common-pl. Bk. (1858), 140. Often tymys provyth the frught affore The stok that hyt cometh off.
1596. Shaks., Merch. V., IV. i. 115.
| The weakest kinde of fruite | |
| Drops earliest to the ground. |
1640. J. Dyke, Worthy Commun., 176. No roote no fruite.
β. 1535. Stewart, Cron. Scot. (1858), I. 165. Sindrie tymes we se That rycht gude fruct cumis of ane gude tre.
† 3. A fruit-tree; also a food-plant. Obs. rare.
a. 1300. Cursor M., 8239. All frutes he plantede in þat place.
1577. B. Googe, Heresbach’s Husb., II. (1586), 84 b. About the tenth of June, both the Vine, and Wheate, the two noble fruites, do flowre.
1767. A. Young, Farmer’s Lett. People, 313. Many of our fruits and most useful plants are the natural inhabitants of much warmer countries.
† 4. A course of fruit; the dessert. To be in one’s fruits: to be at dessert. Obs.
1577–87. Holinshed, Chron., III. 915/2. The officers being at dinner, and the cardinall not fullie dined, being then in his fruits.
1602. Shaks., Ham., II. ii. 52. My Newes shall be the fruit to that great Feast.
5. The seed of a plant or tree, regarded as the means of reproduction, together with its envelope; spec. in Bot. ‘the ripe pistil containing the ovules, arrived at the state of seeds’ (Lindley); also, the spores of cryptogams.
1794. Martyn, Rousseau’s Bot., i. 21. In Botany, by fruit, in herbs as well as in trees, we understand the whole fabric of the seed.
1796. Withering, Brit. Plants (ed. 3), II. 194. Its flower is that of Plantago, but … its fruit distinguish[es] it from that genus.
1813. Sir H. Davy, Agric. Chem. (1814), 140. They [fruits] contain a certain quantity of nourishment laid up in their cells for the use of the embryon plant; mucilage, sugar, starch, are found in many of them combined with vegetable acids.
1870. Hooker, Stud. Flora, 210. Hypochæris … Fruits striate, scabrous.
1886. A. Winchell, Walks & Talks Geol. Field, 175. The low rank of these plants [in the coal-formation] is evinced also by the absence of flowers and fruit.
6. Offspring, progeny. Also, an embryo, fœtus. Orig. a Hebraism. Now rare, exc. in Biblical phraseology. More fully fruit of the body, loins, womb.
a. 1300. Cursor M., 5445. Þi frut i se bi-for mi nei.
a. 1340. Hampole, Psalter, cxxxi. 11. Of þe froite of þi wambe i sall sett on þi seat.
1382. Wyclif, Acts ii. 30. God hadde sworn to him, of the fruyt of his leende for to sitte on his seete.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XVII. lxxiv. (1495), 647. We speke vnproperly somtyme and call the brode of the beestys frute.
c. 1425. Found. St. Bartholomew’s (E.E.T.S.), 42. Stondyng neyr the tyme that the fruyt shulde be proferid forth.
c. 1500. Melusine, xxx. 218. Duchesse, take good heede of your fruyte that groweth in your blood.
1533. Gau, Richt Vay (1888), 12. Thay quhilk takis avay the frwtis of thair nichtburs beistis.
1535. Coverdale, Deut. xxviii. 4. Blessed shalbe the frute of thy body.
1578. Lyte, Dodoens, II. lxxvii. 252. It closeth the Matrice, causeth the fruite to live.
1593. Shaks., 3 Hen. VI., IV. iv. 24. Least with my sighes or teares I blast or drowne King Edwards Fruite.
1607. Topsell, Four-f. Beasts (1658), 463. There is … another excellent medicine … whereby the fruit in a womans womb may be brought forth either dead or putrified.
1611. Bible, Exod. xxi. 22. If men striue, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischiefe follow, he shalbe surely punished, according as the womans husband will lay vpon him, and hee shall pay as the Iudges determine.
1641. Hinde, J. Bruen, i. 2. From whom the Lord with-held the fruit of the womb, as sometimes he did from Rachel, so that by her he had no issue.
1822–34. Good’s Study Med. (ed. 4), IV. 128. Risking the loss of the uterine fruit.
7. Anything accruing, produced, or resulting from an action or effort, the operation of a cause, etc.
a. Material produce, outgrowth, increase; pl. products, revenues.
α. c. 1440. Jacob’s Well (E.E.T.S.), 202. Þe fruyte & þe profyȝte of þat lande & of beeste in þi tyme.
1523. Fitzherb., Surv., 36. S. B. occupyeth the sayd personage him selfe, withall the glebe landes, medowes, tythes, and all other frutes.
1611. Bible, 2 Esdras viii. 10. For thou hast commanded out of the parts of the body, that is to say, out of the breasts milke to be giuen, which is the fruit of the breasts.
1715–20. Pope, Iliad, XVII. 6. Round her new-fallen young the heifer moves, Fruit of her throes.
1726. Shelvocke, Voy. round World, 86. I thank you for the compliment of drinking my health, and have sent you a dozen of hams, as the fruit of this country, and as fruit only I have taken that liberty.
1849. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., I. 311. In the year 1685 the value of the produce of the soil far exceeded the value of all the other fruits of human industry.
β. a. 1500. Colkelbie Sow, iii. 763. Quhilk for þe tyme no fruct nor proffeit did.
1563. Abp. Parker, Articles. Ani patron that … taketh the tythes and other fructes to him selfe.
b. An immaterial product, a result, issue, consequence. sing. and pl.
α. a. 1300. Cursor M., 19230. Was neuer þe fruit o suilk bot ill.
c. 1375. Sc. Leg. Saints, Baptista, 268. Dois worthy froite of pennance ay.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Knt.’s T., 424. Of al oure strif, God woot, the fruyt is thin.
1413. Pilgr. Sowle (Caxton), V. xiv. (1859), 80. Alle the wyde world is fulfylled with the fruyte of theyr good labour.
c. 1460. Fortescue, Abs. & Lim. Mon., iii. (1885), 116. Sumwhat now I haue shewid the frutes of both lawes.
1548–9. (Mar.) Bk. Com. Prayer, Post-Communion. The fruite of good liuing.
1601. Shaks., Twel. N., II. v. 216. Mar. If you will then see the fruites of the sport, mark his first approach before my lady.
1659. Hammond, On Ps., 1. All these Psalms are not the fruit or product of one inspired brain, David indeed was the Composer of many, if not most of them, who is therefore called the sweet Psalmist of Israel.
1668. Temple, Lett. to Ld. Arlington, Wks. 1731, II. 108. The Fruits of our Conferences your Lordship will find in the Enclosed.
1712. Addison, Spect., No. 287, ¶ 6. Riches and Plenty are the natural Fruits of Liberty.
1786. Cowper, Lett. to Churchey, Wks. 1837, XV. 189. The most effectual spur to industry in all such exertions, is to lay the fruit of them before the public.
1853. J. H. Newman, Hist. Sk. (1873), II. I. ii. 64. Zingis swept round the sea of Aral, and destroyed the fruits of a long civilization.
1858. Carlyle, Fredk. Gt., II. vi. (1865), I. 85. His going on the Crusade … was partly the fruit of the life she led him.
β. a. 1568. Ascham, Scholem. (Arb.), 23. I wishe … that yong M. Rob. Sackuille, may take that fructe of this labor.
1585. M. W., Commend. Verses to Jas. I’s Ess. Poesie (Arb.), 10. Lo, heir the fructis, Nymphe, of thy foster faire.
c. Advantage, benefit, enjoyment, profit.
α. c. 1230. Hali Meid., 7. Þus hauen godes freond al þe fruit of þis world þat ha forsaken habbeð.
1484. Caxton, Curiall, 3. Thou shalt haue labour wythoute fruyt and shalt vse thy lyf in perylle.
1559. Mirr. Mag., Worcester, v. The fruite Of reading stories, standeth in the suite.
1588. J. Udall, Diotrephes (Arb.), 17. You shold preach foure tunes euery weeke, with more fruit than you can doe now foure times euery yeere.
1602. Shaks., Ham., II. ii. 145. She tooke the Fruites of my Aduice.
1630. R. Johnson, Relations of the Most Famous Kingdoms, etc., 384. The greatest fruit which the Emperour reapeth by the Crowne of Hungarland, ariseth by the benefit of Mines.
1698. J. Howe, in H. Rogers, Life, x. (1863), 219. I read thy lines with fruit and delight; but have nothing to return of any value.
1858. F. Hall, in Jrnl. Amer. Orient. Soc. (1862), VII. 31. Whosesoever … at any time, has been the soil, his, at that time, has been the fruit of even the previous bestowment thereof.
β. 1500–20. Dunbar, Poems, xxiv. 22. Off warldis gud and grit richess, Quhat fruct hes man but miriness?
8. attrib. and Comb. a. simple attrib., as fruit-barrow, -basket, -branch, -broker, -close, -dealer, -dish, -garden, -grove, -industry, -loft, -shop, -sort, -stall, -stand, -stone, -tart, -time; also fruitwise adv.
1801. Spirit Publ. Jrnls. (1802), V. 187. *Fruit-barrows and the hunger-giving cries Of vegetable venders fill the air.
1803. Gentl. Mag., Ibid. (1804), VII. 44. Look at … the fillagree tea-caddies, the *fruit-baskets, &c., &c.
1719. London & Wise, The Complete Gard’ner, VI. xiv. 123. If a *Fruit Branch should chance to be join’d with the two Wood Branches it may be preserv’d.
1844. Dickens, Mart. Chuz., ix. Several *fruit-brokers had their marts near Todgers’s.
1882. Shorthouse, J. Inglesant, II. xxvi. 317. As for those who had passed away, it was wonderful how soon their name was forgotten, as of ‘a dead man out of mind’; and those who had come into comfortable inheritance of *fruit-closes, and olive-grounds and vineyards, and of houses of pleasure in the fields, which, but for the pestilence, had never been theirs, soon found it possible to reconcile themselves to the absence of the dead.
1810. Sporting Mag., XXXV. Oct., 39/2. The defendant is a *fruit-dealer and gardener.
1603. Shaks., Meas. for M., II. i. 95. We had but two in the house, which … stood, as it were in a *fruit dish.
1712. J. James, trans. Le Blond’s Gardening, 3. All these Kitchen and *Fruit-Gardens, how fine soever, are constantly set in By-places, distinct from the other Gardens.
1725. Pope, Odyss., IV. 974. The faithful slave Whom to my nuptial train Icarius gave, To tend the *fruit-groves.
1894. Daily News, 5 April, 5/5. Will the *fruit industry of this country find another £100 towards it?
1552. Huloet, *Fruite loft, or place to lay fruite in, or to kepe fruite, oporotheca.
1604. Office B. V. M., 277. Ps. lxxviii. 1. They haue made Hierusalem a frute loft.
1650. Howell, Giraffi’s Rev. Naples, I. (1664), 10. He went up and down the *fruit-shops that were in that quarter.
1842. Browning, Soliloquy Sp. Cloister, vi. How go your flowers? None double? Not one *fruit-sort can you spy?
1858. Simmonds, Dict. Trade, *Fruit stall, a stand on the pavement where fruit is sold in the streets.
1800. Morn. Chron., in Spirit Publ. Jrnls. (1801), IV. 40. Nor do we ever see him … riding backwards over *fruit-stands.
1845–6. G. E. Day, trans. Simon’s Anim. Chem., II. 465. Their [intestinal concretions’] nucleus is usually a foreign body, a *fruitstone, a splinter of bone, a needle, or woody fibre.
1568. North, Gueuara’s Diall Pr., IV. (1619), 624/1. Hee coulde make … twelue sorts of sawces and ten of *fruit tartes.
1552. Huloet, *Fruite tyme, when fruite is ripe, vindemia.
1712. Addison, Spect., No. 477, 6 Sept., ¶ 1. I do not suffer any one to destroy their [Birds’] Nests in the Spring, or drive them from their usual Haunts in Fruit time.
1864. Swinburne, Atalanta, 214. *Fruit-wise upon the old flower of tears.
b. objective, as fruit-bearer, -culture, -eater, -evaporation, -giver, -grower, -keeper, -monger, -picker, -seller, -vendor; fruit-bearing, -candying, -packing vbl. sbs.; fruit-bearing, -bringing, -eating, -growing, -producing ppl. adjs.
1726. Leoni, Alberti’s Archit., I. 24/2. Trees … especially *Fruit-bearers.
1883. H. Drummond, Nat. Law in Spir. W. (ed. 2), 271. *Fruit-bearing without Christ is not an improbability, but an impossibility.
1629. Parkinson, Paradisi in Sole Title-p. An Orchard of all sorte of *fruit-bearing Trees and Shrubbes fit for our Land.
1863. Berkeley, Brit. Mosses, i. 4. In a few genera, however, as Fissidens, we have the fruit-bearing branches more distinct.
1853. Hickie, trans. Aristoph. (1872), II. 546. Ceres, the *fruit-bringing queen.
1889. Daily News, 31 May, 5/4. *Fruit-candying establishments.
1483. Cath. Angl., 144. A *Frute eter, xirofagus.
1848. Craig, Ampelidæ, Chatterers or fruit-eaters.
1883. G. Allen, in Knowl., 25 May, 304/1. The blackcap … is a confirmed fruit-eater.
1884. Littell’s Living Age, 688. The shambling, *fruit-eating, bear.
1895. Daily News, 13 Dec., 5/4. *Fruit evaporation would pay British fruit-growers.
1888. Epictetus, II. x. 74. He will be Raingiver and *Fruitgiver.
1884. Harper’s Mag., March, 602/2. The … *fruit-grower may … be made independent of the weather.
1894. Pop. Sci. Monthly, XLIV. 487. Our neighbors of northern Europe are … removed from *fruit-growing regions.
1623. Cockeram, II. A *fruit keeper, epicarpean.
1721. Bradley, Virtue Coffee, 28. As our *Fruitmongers do for Cherries.
1894. Daily News, 22 Jan., 6/3. I am not going to reply in ‘The Daily News’ to the three letters on *fruit-packing.
1880. Libr. Univ. Knowl., I. 164. For harvesting, we have mowing, reaping and binding machines, shellers, *fruit-pickers, etc.
1895. Daily News, 27 Sept., 2/3. Great Britain has to be seriously reckoned with as a *fruit-producing country.
1552. Huloet, *Fruite seller, fructuarius.
1887. Spectator, 25 March, 412/2. The Italian *fruit-vendor or organ-grinder is often a retired workman.
9. Special comb.: fruit-bat (see FLYING-FOX); fruit-bud, a bud containing a fruit germ, in opposition to leaf-bud; fruit-button = fruit-bud; fruit-cake, (a) a cake containing fruit; (b) (see quot.); fruit-clipper, a fast-sailing ship, built for the conveyance of fruit; fruit-crow (see quot.); fruit-dot, Bot., the sorus of ferns; fruit-fly (see quot.); fruit-frame (see quot.); fruit-girl, a girl who sells fruit; fruit-house, a house for storing fruit; fruit-knife, a knife for cutting fruit, with a blade of silver or other material not affected by the acids of the fruit; fruit-meter, a person officially appointed to examine all fruit brought into a market (Cassell); fruit-mill (see quot.); † fruits-paying, the payment of annates or ‘first-fruits’; fruit-piece, ‘a pictured or sculptured representation of fruit’ (Cent. Dict.); fruit-pigeon, a general name given to the pigeons of the genera Carpophaga and Treron; fruit-press, an apparatus for extracting the juice from fruit by pressure; fruit-spur, a small branch whose growth is stopped to ensure the development of fruit-buds; fruit-stalk, a stalk that bears fruit; spec. = PEDUNCLE; also occas. = CARPOPHORE; fruit-sugar = GLUCOSE or LEVULOSE; fruit-tree, a tree cultivated for its fruit; † fruit-trencher, a wooden tray, formerly used as a dessert-plate; † fruit-user = USUFRUCTUARY sb.; fruit-wall, a wall against which fruit-trees are trained; fruit-wife, fruit-woman, a woman who sells fruit; also, † a bawd; † fruit-yard, an orchard.
1883. Chamb. Jrnl., 22 Dec., 810/1. That curious species of bats known as the *fruit-bat or flying-fox.
1664. Evelyn, Kal. Hort. (1729), 190. [When] the Sap begins to stir … one then best discerns the *Fruit-buds.
1707. Curios. in Husb. & Gard., 147. The Graft very seldom fails … provided it … have *Fruit-Buttons.
1885. Lankester, in Encycl. Brit., XIX. 841/2. The cysts [of the Endosporeæ] may be united side by side in larger or smaller groups…. These composite bodies are termed *‘fruit-cakes’ or ‘æthalia,’ in view of the fact that the spore-cysts of Fuligo, also called Æthalium—the well-known ‘flowers of tan’—form a cake of this description.
1864. Blackmore, Clara Vaughan, III. xvii. 100. She [the ‘Lilyflower’] could exhibit her taffrail to the smartest *fruit-clipper—the name was then just invented—that ever raced for the Monument.
1856. W. S. Dallas, Nat. Hist. Anim. Kingd., 552. The Gymnoderinæ, or *Fruit Crows.
1880. Gray, Struct. Bot., Gloss., 433/2. Sori, sing. sorus. Heaps, such as the clustered *fruit-dots of Ferns.
1753. Chambers, Cycl. Supp., *Fruit-flies, a name given by gardeners, and others, to a sort of small black flies, found in vast numbers among fruit trees, in the spring season.
1874. Knight, Dict. Mech., I. 919/1. *Fruit frame. [Hort.] A trellis or espalier.
1750. H. Walpole, Lett. to G. Montagu, 23 July (1857), II. 213. She had brought Betty, the *fruit-girl, with hampers of strawberries and cherries.
1812. Combe, Picturesque, XXIII. A fruit-girl’s barrow strikes his shin.
1794. Ld. Spencer, in Ld. Auckland’s Corr. (1862), III. 255. I am going with Caroline to the *fruit-house.
1855. H. Clarke, Dict., *Fruit-knife.
1881. Daily News, 5 Aug., 2/7. In long past days the Corporation *fruitmeters claimed a sample of fruit from each package entering the Port of London.
1874. Knight, Dict. Mech., I. 920/2. *Fruit-Mill. A mill for grinding grapes for must or apples for cider.
1709. Strype, Ann. Ref., I. vi. 97. To pray the Queen … to be discharged of their own Subsidies the first Year of their *Fruits-paying.
1865. Athenæum, No. 1954. 494/3. A rare *fruit-pigeon from the Seychelles.
1823. in Cobbett, Rur. Rides (1885), I. 325. [A] great number of these shoots have *fruit-spurs, which will have blossom, if not fruit, next year.
1796. Withering, Brit. Plants (ed. 3), II. 17. Flowers solitary: leaves heart-shaped, on leaf-stalks, shorter than the *fruit-stalks.
1846. J. Baxter, Libr. Pract. Agric. (ed. 4), II. 301. [Strawberries] Every runner is, in its incipient state of formation, capable of becoming a fruit-stalk.
1577. B. Googe, Heresbach’s Husb., II. (1586), 72. *Fruite trees and Vines.
1667. Milton, P. L., V. 213. Where any row Of Fruit-trees … reached too farr Thir pamperd boughes.
1846. J. Baxter, Libr. Pract. Agric. (ed. 4), II. 379. Three modes of pruning … first, the fruit-tree method.
1642. Milton, An Apology against Smectymnuus, 28. He greets us with a quantity of thum-ring posies. He has a fortune therefore good, because he is content with it. This is a piece of sapience not worth the brain of a *fruit-trencher; as if content were the measure of what is good or bad in the gift of fortune.
1883. Oxf. Guide-book [The picture-gallery of the Bodleian contains] Queen Elizabeth’s fruit-trenchers.
c. 1449. Pecock, Repr., 411. But thei ben *Fruyte Users of the godis.
1699. (title) *Fruit Walls improved by inclining them to the Horizon.
1773. Mrs. Grant, Lett. fr. Mount. (1807), I. x. 78. She has built a fruit wall, a thing before unheard of here.
1611. Cotgr., Fruictiere, a *Fruit-wife; or woman that selleth fruits.
1672. Dryden, Assignation, III. i. Wks. 1883, IV. 416. She’s as arrant a *fruit-woman as any is about Rome.
1849. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., I. 358. Fruit women screamed.
1555. Watreman, Fardle Facions, II. ix. 205. The Gelonites, occupienge tilthe: liue by corne, and haue their *frute yardes.
